Clinton’s Latest Gas Tax Holiday Distortion

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Last updated on July 1st, 2012 at 06:20 am

The desperation of Hillary Clinton knows no limits, as today in Hendersonville, NC she continued to try to make her mythical gas tax holiday the centerpiece of her attacks against Barack Obama, “We have a choice. We can choose to have you continue to pay the federal gas tax this summer or we can choose to try to make the oil companies pay it out of their record profits. This is the kind of choice that I believe we should be trying to make, because I know where I stand and I know where my opponents stand.”

She continued with her faux populist rhetoric, and tried to label Obama as a friend of the oil industry. “Senator Obama doesn’t want us to take down the gas tax this summer and Senator McCain wants us to, but he doesn’t want to pay for it. I believe we should impose an excess profits tax on the oil companies. They have record profits that they frankly are just sitting there counting because they are not doing anything new to earn it; they are just taking advantage of what is going on,” Clinton said.

She went on to label herself as one of us, fighting against the bad guys, “We ought to say: Wait a minute, we’d rather have the oil companies pay the gas tax than the drivers of North Carolina, especially the truck drivers, or the farmers, or other people who have to commute long distances.”

The problem with Clinton’s argument is that she completely ignores the fact that a gas tax holiday won’t solve anything. Remember, this is the same Clinton who wants to create jobs and spend billions on infrastructure. Well, where does the money come from for road and bridge infrastructure repairs? You guessed it, the federal gas tax. How is Clinton going to pay for her new programs and eliminate the federal gas tax even for the summer?

A gas tax holiday doesn’t solve the problem related to our energy crunch, and it actually creates more problems by lowering the price of gas, and encouraging consumption. On top of this, it takes money out of the treasury that needs to be used for infrastructure. This is such a bad idea on so many levels, but desperate candidates usually make desperate proposals when the end is near.

Clinton quotes:

http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/release/view/?id=7467